Justice - Court: No trial for far-right police chats
In the case of a police-Chat group with extremist content, the Higher Regional Court Frankfurt confirmed a decision against a court procedure. The Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office had filed a complaint, as the District Court did not want to open a main hearing. The Higher Regional Court stated that there was not sufficient suspicion against the accused, who were predominantly police officers at the time of the chats.
"The realization of the contemplated criminal offenses would require 'distribution' of the content", it was stated. This requirement was not met.
The accused were charged with having shared images and videos with prohibited content in various chat groups between autumn 2014 and autumn 2018. This mainly concerned symbols of unconstitutional organizations and hate-filled content. Five out of the six accused were police officers at the time.
"Serious doubts about loyalty to the constitution"
The chat group "Itiotentreff" was also part of the investigations. In this group, more than 1600 messages were exchanged between six to eight members within a year.
"The accused have indeed - especially and primarily in the chat 'Itiotentreff' – shared in significant quantities partly intolerable human-degrading, extremist, glorifying-violence, antisemitic, ableist, and racist content", the Higher Regional Court stated. "This justifies serious doubts about the constitutional loyalty of the police officers named as defendants and requires disciplinary consequences".
According to earlier reports, representations of Adolf Hitler, swastikas, and other Nazi symbols, as well as trivialized depictions of the Holocaust, were shared.
The actions described by the prosecution were not punishable, however. The distribution of the content did not take place - they were set in private, closed chat groups with a manageable number of members who were closely connected to each other. "In no case were the content described by the prosecution made accessible to a larger audience".
Investigations into "NSU 2.0"-Threat letters
The chat group of officers from the 1st Frankfurt Police Precinct was discovered during investigations into the "NSU 2.0" complex. A few years ago, threatening letters with this signature were sent to numerous figures in public life - in reference to the right-wing extremist terrorist cell National Socialist Underground (NSU). The author was eventually sent to prison for a sentence.
The first letter in the series arrived by fax at Frankfurt lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz in August 2018. It contained personal data that were not publicly accessible and had been unauthorizedly accessed from a service computer at the 1st Frankfurt Police Precinct. Investigations regarding this, which targeted a police officer and a policewoman from the precinct, were closed in December 2023. A sufficient suspicion could not be established.
- The police-led Chat group with extremist content was initially under investigation in Frankfurt, Germany.
- The Public Prosecutor's Office in Hesse took action against the case when the District Court declined to open a main hearing.
- The accused, primarily police officers, were charged with sharing prohibited content including symbols of unconstitutional organizations and hate-filled messages.
- The Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt stated that the distribution requirement for criminal offenses was not met in the private, closed chat groups.
- The investigations into the chat group "Itiotentreff" uncovered over 1600 extremist, antisemitic, ableist, and racist messages shared among six to eight members.
- Despite the sharing of extremist content within the chat group, the actions described were not considered punishable as they were private and did not reach a larger audience.
Additionally, the chat group was discovered during investigations into the "NSU 2.0" threat letters sent to public figures in Frankfurt. However, investigations into the police officer and policewoman found in connection to unauthorizedly accessed personal data were closed due to lack of sufficient suspicion.
